How to Build a Lead Funnel That Actually Works

Too often, though, we’re becoming too busy with other tasks we enjoy doing more and we neglect the lead generation process altogether.

And that’s a huge mistake.

Leads that turn into customers are the ones who pay your bills.

Even if you have the best business idea, it won’t matter.

If you’ve got no leads, your business will sink.

The same goes if you to attract the wrong kind of audience.

So, how do you generate leads that turn into paying customers?

There are many ways you can achieve this.

In this guide, for example, you’ll find 11 lead generation tactics that’ll most likely work for your business, too.

Today, however, I’d like to focus on one method that you will not find in this guide. It’s got to do with lead funnels.

If you’re new to the term lead funnels or aren’t sure how to build an effective one yourself, then keep on reading.

In a moment, you’ll learn everything you need to create your first lead funnel.

To make it easier, we’ll be showing the steps using the GetResponse Autofunnel, our funnel creator tool that comes with all the features you need to build, manage, and promote your lead generation funnels.

Ready?

Let’s start by defining what lead generation and leads are, so that we’re on the same page.

What is a lead?

This may come as a bit of a surprise, but each company, marketer, or salesperson, usually has their own definition of a lead.

They know well what lead generation is, but their understanding of the terms like lead, prospect, or lead quality usually varies.

More or less, this is a definition that most would agree on:

A lead is someone who’s shown interest in your offer and handed you their contact details, so that you can continue the conversation.

The tricky part?

A lead could be someone who came up to you at an event, asked you about your product, and gave you their business card to schedule a product demo.

At the same time…

A lead could be someone who’s downloaded one of your ebooks in exchange for which, they’ve had to leave their email address.

In the first scenario, we’ve got someone who’s clearly interested in your product and wants to learn more.

In the second one, unless we know the topic of the ebook we can’t say the same for sure.

This brings us to the second important term – lead quality.

What is lead quality?

To distinguish the good leads from the bad ones, marketers and sales teams use the term lead quality.

But this concept isn’t as straightforward as it may sound.

What makes a lead ‘good’ often varies between companies and could even be different for various departments within the same organization.

For marketers, a good quality lead may be someone that’s downloaded their report dedicated to a particular industry.

For salespeople, a good quality lead might be someone who’s in a position to make a buying decision and has the resources to actually afford your products.

If you’re going to run lead generation campaigns for your company, you’ll want to make sure that you and your teammates are using the same definition. This will make your life so much easier when reporting on your campaigns’ outcomes.

Alright, now let’s focus on how you can acquire more customers with lead generation funnels.

What are lead funnels?

Marketing funnels are visual representations of the process of attracting consumers who are unfamiliar with your brand, turning them into leads and prospects, and finally converting them into paying customers.

Ecommerce business

Now let’s see how an ecommerce business could use a funnel to acquire more leads and turn them into customers.

For this example, we’re going to imagine you’re an online store owner selling various types of accessories and fashion items.

To generate leads you’ve decided to create a set of gift guides – a gift guide for those who love to travel, sports and activities amateurs, and finally a guide for those who are crazy about a specific movie or game.

Now that you’ve selected the lead magnet, you have to place it on your signup form and start promoting it.

To drive tons of traffic, you’ve decided to run Facebook ads, targeted at people with specific set of characteristics and interests.

Once someone fills out your signup form, they receive a thank you email with a link to download the guide.

That could be the end of it, or you could turn that lead funnel into a sales funnel.

To do that, you just need to add more emails into your lead nurturing sequence, present your best-rated products, and give them a discount code for their first purchase.

As an extra step, you could also run retargeting ads for those who abandoned your sales page or run a Lookalike audience ad based on contacts who’ve already bought something from you before.